‘More than 40% of women and more than 18% of men have experienced some form of unwanted sexual behaviour in the workplace’, says the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC).

WEC have launched a full February 2018 inquiry on sexual harassment in the workplace and they are inviting submissions of written evidence.

This inquiry will sit alongside their related inquiry on the Sexual harassment of women and girls in public places.

WEC are inviting written evidence specifically on:

How widespread sexual harassment in the workplace is, and whether this has increased or decreased over time
Who experiences sexual harassment in the workplace, who perpetrates it and what the impact is on different groups
Actions that the Government and employers should be taking to change workplace culture to prevent sexual harassment, give people more confidence to report sexual harassment, and make this issue a higher priority for employers
How workers can be better protected from sexual harassment by clients, customers and other third parties
The effectiveness and accessibility of tribunals and other legal means of redress and what can be done to improve those processes
the advantages and disadvantages of using non-disclosure agreements in sexual harassment cases, including how inappropriate use of such agreements might be tackled.
Find out more on the WEC website.

‘There is significant under-representation of women in executive levels’, says the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC).

As a result, WEC have launched a follow-up 2017 inquiry into women in executive management.

The committee will build on its recent work on this issue with a one-off evidence session looking at:

How the situation for women in senior roles has changed since the Committee last took evidence
The barriers to women achieving senior positions
The measures being taken by organisations to improve the situation
Effectiveness of Government action to date and what further Government action is needed.
Find out more on the WEC website.

The Fawcett Society is recruiting a Chair . This position will be for an initial three-year term and requires a commitment of 15-20 days per year. Applications close on 15 March 2018.

The post-holder will facilitate Board leadership and engagement as well as deliver effective staff and performance management. They will also be a spokesperson and represent Fawcett at public and media events and through campaigns.

Stonewall invite you to their 2018 Workplace Conference in London. This conference will provide delegates the opportunity to learn best practice and network with the aim of inspiring and making change.

The conference will include workshops led by inclusion specialists on the following topics:

Despite allegations of serious abuse in immigration detention centers, the UK
persisted in not imposing a maximum time limit for immigration detention, and
continued to detain asylum-seeking and migrant children.

This is from the January 2018 report (pdf) from the Human Rights Watch (HRW). World Report 2018 is their 28th annual review of human rights
practices around the globe.

The report summarises key human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide, drawing on events from late 2016 through November 2017.

The report finds:

Germany over the past year made headlines when the Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party to enter its parliament in decades
Despite a strong tradition of protecting civil and political rights, Australia has serious unresolved human rights problems. Australia continued in 2017 to hold asylum seekers who arrived by boat on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and on the island nation of Nauru, where conditions are abysmal
Bahrain’s human rights situation continued to worsen in 2017. Authorities shut down the country’s only independent newspaper and the leading secular-left opposition political society.
In Bangladesh, civil society groups faced pressure from both state and non-state actors, including death threats and attacks from extremist groups.

‘Black women potentially suffer a double burden of bias that keeps them from the uppermost levels of corporate leadership’.

This is according to a January 2018 report (pdf) from McKinsey and Company. This report tackles the business case and provides a perspective on how to take action on inclusion and diversity to impact growth and business performance.

This work sheds light on how companies can use diversity as an enabler of business impact.

It also articulates a clear opportunity for companies to promote inclusion and diversity in senior decision-making roles, and specifically in line roles on executive teams.

The report finds:

The statistically significant correlation between a more diverse leadership team and financial outperformance demonstrated three years ago continues to hold true on an updated, enlarged, and global data set
Companies in the top-quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 21% more likely to outperform on profitability and 27% more likely to have superior value creation
Companies in the top-quartile for ethnic/cultural diversity on executive teams were 33% more likely to have industry-leading profitability
Overall, companies in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnic/ cultural diversity were 29% less likely to achieve above-average profitability than were all other companies in McKinsey and Company’s data set.
Read the full report (pdf).

Scope is recruiting a Public Affairs Manager on a permanent basis in London. Applications close on 28 February 2018.

The post-holder will deliver Scope’s Public Affairs strategy to make sure influencing objectives are seen, heard and acted on by political stakeholders. They will also oversee the development of the Public Affairs team.

End Violence Against Women (EVAW) is recruiting a Head of Communications on a permanent, full time basis (although 80% pro rata will be considered). The application deadline has been extended to 19 February 2018.